Banksia Hall

Banskia Hall, also known as the Manville House, was built in the late 1700s and may be one of the oldest standing structures in Barnwell. Sherman’s Calvary used the house as their headquarters for a small time during the Civil War. Amazingly, the house has been owned by the same family since 1869.

Banskia Hall presents a typical picture of a South Carolina upcountry style plantation house of ca. 1780-1800. The house is of simple Georgian design in the style common from Georgia to Pennsylvania in the late eighteenth century. The house is two-stories with rear shed projections and a wide, full façade piazza. Its solid square columns support the second level porch that was added prior to 1900. The kitchen was reconstructed about 1866 and connected via a breezeway to the rear elevation of this long leaf pine building. In 1950 a porch replaced the breezeway and two bathrooms were added.

From 1865 until 1868, federal military forces that occupied the western Lowcountry of South Carolina used the house. What is now the drawing room was used as the office in which an oath of allegiance to the United States was administered. Pardon was promised to those who had participated in the war if they would pledge allegiance to the Union and obedience to the laws of the United States.